Lucy Spraggan has explained her widely-discussed feud with fellow X Factor star James Arthur over his use of homophobic language.
The ‘Impossible’ singer called his rival Micky Worthless a “f**king queer” in a rap earlier this month, later apologising – explaining that the term is used with a different meaning in the hip hop world.
Spraggan then fell out with him over his choice of language – and has now insisted that she knows he is not fundamentally homophobic.
“There has been a lot of discussion around my tweets to James Arthur last week and I’d like to make my views clear,” she said.
“This is a sensitive subject and I want to clarify that, whilst I know James isn’t a homophobe and I didn’t intend for my tweets to be read that way, I did want to confront an issue that I feel really strongly about and which is what I had hoped to highlight.”
She went on:
“Homophobic language has sadly become so engrained into everyday conversation and people don’t realise the discriminating and devastating effect it can have.”
“Stonewall are carrying out an amazing campaign at the moment about the use of language which is something I fully support and I hope everyone takes the time to look into.”
Despite a petition calling for him to banned, James is due to return to the X Factor stage this weekend for his homecoming performance.